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Well for one thing, one needs to take into account the distances involved. One would assume an orbital battery would be in a stable orbit, so somewhere in the order of 2,000 km or greater to be out of low earth orbit (and thus out of normal spaceflight range). Thus any projecticle or missile would have to penetrate the atmosphere in reentery for a great distance while travelng at very high speeds to be able to hit a moving target. Even at Mach 7 or whatever, that is still over 13 minutes from pressing the fire button to hitting the target.

Question. There seems to be some difference in terms being used between beam weapon and laser. What are we classifying as a "beam weapon".

Well for one thing, one needs to take into account the distances involved. One would assume an orbital battery would be in a stable orbit, so somewhere in the order of 2,000 km or greater to be out of low earth orbit (and thus out of normal spaceflight range). Thus any projecticle or missile would have to penetrate the atmosphere in reentery for a great distance while travelng at very high speeds to be able to hit a moving target. Even at Mach 7 or whatever, that is still over 13 minutes from pressing the fire button to hitting the target.

Question. There seems to be some difference in terms being used between beam weapon and laser. What are we classifying as a "beam weapon".

No, it doesn't have to be that high. The international space station can maintain orbit at just 350 km.

A beam weapon shoots subatomic particles or atoms close to the speed of light. They call these particle beams.

Fleet travel time question. I probably missed it at some point, but how often does the fleet fold while moving deeper and deeper into space? They can't be moving out at sublight speeds at all times...because they'd never get anywhere....even for a multi-generational ship.

Back to a "macross tech question". It's not really known. It's not covered in M7 either. However, they did also have a fold sequence. From the way it's depicted in MF, it seems like the energy is funneled at a slow rate into some sort of storage until it reaches a critical mass when the whole ship is able to jump (an emergancy jump requires drawing power from else where to increase the charge rate). In M7 we know they had a separate fold energy system than from Battle 7. However, they never mention an environmental impact when they needed to be powered up.

If we start talking fastest known re-entry speeds, then were are talking somewhere between 3 and 13 seconds to hit the target from lower earth orbit. But then the projectile will have to be made to survive an immense amount of heat and pressure to reach said target. At such speeds, pressures, and temperatures, there is not room or time for a guidance system that would just be burned off. To do so would make the projectile extremely expensive. A lesser dumbfire round that can be fired multiple times would seem like a better option against stationary targets. It would be cheaper for sure.

Macross travel:
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If one follows the Space Battleship Yamato method of travel for their first season, they would do a space warp once or twice a day through normal operations to go the distance required of them to complete their mission.

The Macross Colonial Fleets seem to be both exploration and colonization. One would think they would fold to the next viable star system and then spend time crossing the system to explore the region. Or at least fold so they are close to a system so they can send in ships or fighters to have a look see. They spend X amount of time exploring and if they don't find something they need, they pack up the fleet and fold to the next star system...or however far they can fold safety.

They may make smaller folds and then coast through deep space to provide time to work on projects, food stuffs, or whatever the colony needs before attempting to explore another potentially hostile region of space.

If we start talking fastest known re-entry speeds, then were are talking somewhere between 3 and 13 seconds to hit the target from lower earth orbit. But then the projectile will have to be made to survive an immense amount of heat and pressure to reach said target. At such speeds, pressures, and temperatures, there is not room or time for a guidance system that would just be burned off. To do so would make the projectile extremely expensive. A lesser dumbfire round that can be fired multiple times would seem like a better option against stationary targets. It would be cheaper for sure.

According to specifications from Project Thor, the projectiles would be made out of tungsten, and capable of traveling at 9 kilometers per second, which is faster than Mach 25 actually. At those speeds, the projectile doesn't really need to be guided. Aimed trajectories seem sufficient.

At station distance, that is about 39 second from pulling the trigger to hitting the target. Rounded to 40 seconds to assume a slight lag in ground to orbit communications or a power up routine. (9 km a second, 350 km to travel)

Daigo: You mentioned that an OKW has a giant space heatsink. This is incorrect. While Space is a vacuum and may be absolute zero, because it is a vacuum you are unable to vent off that excess heat, because there is no medium to transfer the heat from your OKW into space. Don't believe me? Use a thermos. The reason the thermos works to seal in hot liquids is because of the vacuum inside that prevents the liquids discharging their heat.

As for antiship missiles aimed at carriers, you're thinking of the French Exocet. Part of the reason Exocet got its rep in the Falklands, however, is due to the fact that the Royal Navy were not adequately geared for countermissile warfare - they were a primarily an ASW-focused navy. There's also the trick put into practice by the Royal Navy, which did work (and caused a few hair raising near misses) of mounting missile decoys to helicopters, in which case your chopper flies up and decoys the antiship missile to it. You also seem to have forgotten about countermissile systems like ECM, chaff, and point defense installations.

Also, despite it being the age of missiles, nobody in any military today is saying that fighters can be replaced by missiles.

Submersible carriers existed in SDF:M; I'm very amused everyone seems to have forgetten that Daedalus was a submbersible Destroid carrier. The way I see it, it appears to have been primarily intended as a landing ship. IMO submersible carriers would probably be like Daedalus and Tuatha de Danaan from Full Metal Panic: Amphibious Assault Ships, designed to deploy and support a landing force, with a small number of organic air assets: in Tuatha de Danaan's case, enough heavy lift choppers to deploy its mecha complement, around 4-6 RAH-66 Comanches for CAS, and another 6 upgraded supersonic Uber Harrier II Pluses (all with optical camo, but then FMP is a universe of its own...) Actually when one looks at the makeup of TDD-1's air wing it's very heavily modeled off the USMC's Marine Expeditionary Unit.

Now, a submersible carrier wouldn't be very good for force projections; I was talking with a friend of mine, a retired RN officer, and he said that part of the reason a carrier has force projection is that it's there and it's visible, and within a 1000 square mile area of itself, it controls the sea and anything in it. Submarines are stealthy and are more for sneak attacks and surprise nuke launches. The most likely users of a submersible carrier I can see, in this our universe, would be the Marines: if in the future amphibious operations are going to be too dangerous for an ESG to loiter, then a Amphibious Assault Submarine will be one option to consider.

But aircraft carriers being obselete? Not very likely. You'll still need pilots flying top cover to protect the ground pounders, especially in the Marine Corps, which jealously guards its air wings from misappropriation by everyone else. In the words of a Marine 2-star at a NATO conference: "We regard our airplanes as goddamned rifles with wings."

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~Speaking my mind, even when it costs me~One must forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.Heinrich Heine.

There was some anime that had submersible Mega Carriers (big enough to land something the size of a Boeing 747 easily). It would normally operate on the surface, but could go below the water to avoid certain types of attacks. Or perhaps so that one would have difficultly tracking said vessel until it arrived on station to dominate the air and sea.

And yes the standard theory of a submersible carrier would be marine/army support and air superiority in hostile regions rather than today's standard of force projection. Today's standard is actually a lot like the old form of gunboat diplomacy. In the old days in order to get a point across a major power would send a armored cruiser or a battleship to a foreign port or coastline to remind them that someone with bigger guns is watching. Today a Super Carrier arrives off the coast of some country and an element or flight of F/A-18s fly overhead to remind them that Uncle Sam is watching and may or may not be amused by what they are doing.

As for the U.S. Marines. They will only buy something is it leaks oil and has been proven in combat already.

(As for FMP! There you have a world that uses active stealth and progressively higher tech equipment, turbojets rather than turbofans, and huge battle suit like mechs)

Macross designs seem to be somewhere between fighting the last World War and the First Space War. They didn't quite advance out of the last World War's mindset into full space capable forces, but always retained their land, air, (and possibly sea) arms style mechs and ships. At least those that were not of alien design to begin with.

Actually Turbofans are of a superior design to turbojets The UberHarriers were using upgraded turbofans; all military fighters use turbofans. You're thinking more ramjets like on the QF-2000 UCAVs and the FRX-99 Rafe and FFR-41 Mave (B-503 Yukikaze) (and IIRC the YF-19 and YF-21 had ramjets, but I can't be sure). Ramjets aren't so practical at the altitudes where most fighters operate at though, plus there's the problem that they're fuel hogs.

As for the Marines: actually Amphibious Assault Subs would be Navy operated, now that I really think about it, like how the Wasp and Tarawa-class ships are run by the Navy and carry Marines. So really they'd have no choice. "STFU Marine, if you don't like your ride you can swim."

And let's not forget the V-22, which while it's had a fucklong development, is currently serving well in Iraq and all Marines love it. The only gripe is that it has no gun, but then Marines want guns on everything . Fear the NUNS Marines: they'd want the VF-25 Armored as Standard Issue and would sling as much junk as possible onto the wing hardpoints

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~Speaking my mind, even when it costs me~One must forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.Heinrich Heine.

Most probably a Ghost Version adapted to Space Combat, thus exceeding with maneuverability and mobility over the test type X9.

Ghost X9 is an old version and I'm positive many improvements were developed for space combat, thus the 'S' in their name. Fighters in Macross can handle huge G Forces thanks to their construction and materials used. The gravity control systems most probably let pilots handle big portions of those G Forces while piloting but there are always limits.

The A.I. of Ghosts is their main point of value. Only an incredibly advanced A.I. can handle real time tactics, maneuvers and predictions of battle development. Ghosts may have advanced in structure but they will always be as good as their A.I.

AIF-9B Ghost
Which is the same body but dumb down AI seen in VFX-2. Same body as the X-9.

AIF-7S Ghost
Like the AIF-9B a dumb down AI which is vulnerable to strong ECM.

V-9 Ghost

I'm making a guess that Macross Galaxy pretty much move past the tech stasis of the events of Macross Plus. The VF-27 has a more advanced version of BDI through implants and cyborg bodies make extreme manuevers survivable.

Since Grace is more machine AI now than human I guess these things are controled by Galaxy's collective mind. Like Sharon Apple is a poor copy of Myung's mind.

Luca's three AIF-7S have the original AI system of the X-9 which is the Judah.

The X-9's AI was corrupted by Sharon Apple which is using the same Bio Neural chips.

The V-9 also has a beam gun which appears to be the same as that carried by the VF-27, meaning that it potentially can fire off those powerful hugeass beams.

I only saw the V-9 fire off rapid beam burst. The green beams by Grace's beamspam is from the Vajra.

The VF-27G has a system that allows it to remotely control the V9s at will, or assign them an AI.

Spoiler for Might disrupt cultural sensitivity, NSFW:

I noticed that the system is named JUDAH, and the music in the background sung by Ranka and Sheryl is Lion. For those who don't know, it is a reference to a character in the Old Testament named Judah, who is depicted as a Lion.

I noticed that the system is named JUDAH, and the music in the background sung by Ranka and Sheryl is Lion. For those who don't know, it is a reference to a character in the Old Testament named Judah, who is depicted as a Lion.

I also believe the V9's were packing micros missile launchers too. Interesting point about the Judahs, could Grace have hacked them ala Sharon Apple if she was actually paying attention to the micros of the battle? I still would have really liked to have seen the NUNS and SMS pilots taking out the Ghost but because of the shear numbers I have to believe the Vajra were the ones that took them down.